Kin Against Kin: Internal Co-selection and the Coherence of Kinship Typologies

Kin-Selection: The Rise and Fall of Kin-Cheaters

We demonstrate the existence of altruism via kin selection in artificial life and explore its nuances. We do so in the Avida system through a setup that is based on the behavior of colicinogenic bacteria: Organisms can kill unrelated organisms in a given radius but must kill themselves to do so. Initially, we confirm results found in the bacterial world: Digital organisms do sacrifice themselve...

Kin Selection

Kin selection

How can individuals calculate relatedness? They generally don’t need to, any more than a bird needs to calculate aerodynamic forces to fly. If, under certain conditions, performing a behavior satisfies Hamilton’s rule, then the action is favored. The triggering conditions may include cues to relatedness, which are usually based on social experience. A bee, for example, learns the smell of her b...

The Homeopathy of Kin Selection

0730-9384/2001/020203-13 © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences Abstract. The present discussion of sociobiological approaches to ethnic nepotism takes Pierre van den Bergheʼs theory as a starting point. Two points, which have not been addressed in former analyses, are considered to be of particular importance. It is argued that the behavioral mechanism of ethnic nepotism—as understoo...

The Kin Selection of Religion

I describe an integrative hypothesis for the origin and evolution of human religious cognition and behavior. The hypothesis is based on kin selection, which leads to reduced competition and increased cooperation within family and small-scale groups, and generates novel forms of psychological kinship that foster cooperation in larger scale groups. The 'concept of God' is represented by, and orig...